Atheists’ unresponsiveness to God primes rules out ideomotor explanations

Evidence

Second, while we ponder the question of whether atheism can penetrate deep into the human psyche, it will become clear that, as described later in some detail, at least some atheists are unresponsive to nonconscious religious primes. This speaks against an ideomotor account, because everyone, including nonbelievers, is aware of (though does not necessarily endorse) the association between religious concepts and benevolence. Therefore, if ideomotor processes are all that is needed to get these effects, awareness should be sufficient to trigger priming effects. Yet some nonbelievers are impervious to priming effects. Other factors must be operating, and the most likely alternative possibility, as we have seen, is supernatural monitoring. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 161

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question of what happens when the perceived omniscient gaze is removed—apostasy breaks the watcher-believer bond, and atheists show the prime-resistance that apostates might emulate.

Related

• Religious primes fail to affect atheists, disproving a purely ideomotor account (similarity 0.95)
• Studying nonbelievers’ responses to religious primes requires nonconscious priming and independent belief measurement. (similarity 0.89)
• Religious priming effects are testable against the ideomotor alternative (similarity 0.87)
• Nonconscious religious primes reliably affect believers but only inconsistently affect atheists. (similarity 0.84)
• Omniscient-god beliefs only change behavior when the deity is actively on the believer’s mind. (similarity 0.83)
• Atheism has multiple independent causal pathways, not one (similarity 0.83)
• God priming increases both generosity and felt watching only in believers (similarity 0.82)
• Priming analytic thought reduces expressed belief in God (similarity 0.81)
• Beliefs change behavior only when they enter conscious awareness (similarity 0.81)
• Priming analytical thinking via a statue causes an immediate religious belief dip. (similarity 0.81)
• Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming (similarity 0.80)
• Atheism lacks the intuitive support that religious belief enjoys. (similarity 0.80)
• Disbelief does not always require effortful rejection of intuitive theism. (similarity 0.80)
• Priming intuitive thinking temporarily raises belief in God. (similarity 0.80)
• Religious priming boosts prosocial behavior only for believers, not non-believers. (similarity 0.80)